Women in French Newsletter ______

Volume 30, Number 1 Spring 2016

President’s Letter hope to have this very important position filled before the conference in June so the new Cecilia Beach person can join us at the business meeting. Alfred University This past year, our regional representatives Dear Colleagues, have been busy at work, notably organizing sessions at the regional MLA conferences. I I am both pleased and honored to have been was able to attend the RMMLA in Santa Fe elected President of Women in French and this year where we had an amazing showing look forward to serving this organization, with ten WIF sessions and about forty which has been a great inspiration and support members in attendance thanks to the efforts to me throughout my academic career. I’d like Arline Cravens, our representative from the to express my appreciation to all those who Central and Rocky Mountain region. I had fun have preceded me and in particular Mary Anne bringing my interests in Women in French and Garnett, the outgoing President, under whose yoga together in my talk at the reception on leadership Women in French has continued to “The Karma and Dharma of Women in thrive since 2012. I know I will be calling on French.” her often over the next year for advice and guidance. The MLA brought us to Austin Texas this year from January 7-10, 2016. Women in French Many thanks also to the outgoing regional held a well-attended session on Working representatives, Amy Reid (South) and Women: Labor and Gender in French and Catherine Montfort (Western US and Canada), Francophone Literature and Film organized by and welcome to the newly elected officers: Leslie Barnes. Members also participated in Patrice Proulx and Susan Ireland, Co-Vice- Presidents, Adrienne Angelo, representative for the South, and Annabelle Dolidon, Contents representative for Western US and Canada. I President’s Letter 1 look forward to working with you and the WIF Business 3 incumbent officers. If you would like to serve Conference Reports and News 6 Women in French and have not yet had the WIF Member Publications and News 9 opportunity, there will be six positions opening WIF Science Fiction Bibliography 13 up next year: Secretary, Treasurer, three (Annabelle Dolidon, Kristi Karathanassis, Andrea King) Regional Representatives (please see the Call List of Past Bibliographies 28 for Nominations later in this issue for more WIF Roster 30 information). We will have an early election for the treasurer’s position since Molly Enz will be on sabbatical in Senegal in the fall. We

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sessions organized by the George Sand Which brings me once again to this year’s Association, as well as the Cash Bar sponsored Women in French conference organized by by the Women’s Caucus, Women in French, Florence Jurney. Many thanks to Florence to Women in German, and Feministas Unidas. taking on this daunting task. The conference, Other social events included a Friday night whose theme is Fluid Identities: Margins and party at the home of Alexandra Wettlaufer, Centers in French and Francophone Women’s who generously opened her home to dozens of Literature, Cinema and Art, will take place on conference attendees, and an informal cocktail June 9-11, 2016 at Gettysburg College in following a session on teaching George Sand. Pennsylvania. The preliminary program, Ten people attended the WIF business meeting (available online which was held over lunch. No official http://www.gettysburg.edu/academics/french/fr business was conducted since the board will be ench-conference/), promises a rich variety of holding a meeting in Gettysburg in June, but it topics with about 100 participants from around was an excellent opportunity for new members the world. Our keynote speaker as mentioned and old get to know each other and to discuss above will be Yanick Lahens, a Haitian author WIF’s offerings. who received the Prix Fémina in 2014 for her novel Bain de lune. The conference will also Women in French Studies had change of mark the beginning of the One Book program leadership last year; Juliette Rogers took over with a discussion of Lahens’s novel and a book from Dawn Cornelio as Editor and Marjin signing (more about this initiative as the Kaplan took on the meticulous job of program develops). Production Editor. 2015 brought us a Special Issue with select essays from the 2014 WIF Finally, I’d like to briefly summarize the conference in Guelph edited by the conference results of the survey I conducted online last organizers—Dawn Cornelio, Margot Irvine, summer. Over 96% of the 111 respondents, and Karin Schwerdtner—, as well as the most of whom had been members of WIF for twenty-third annual collection of essays edited over 6 years, thought that WIF fulfills its by Juliette Rogers. I would like to draw your mission as stated, though several justifiably attention in particular to the final essay in this pointed out that it should include Canada. Our volume by Laura Lott on Yanick Lahens’s bylaws now officially reflect the importance of “post-earthquake narrative revisions.” Yanick our Canadian membership as we voted in Lahens will be our keynote speaker at the 2016 December to revise the statement of purpose to WIF conference at Gettysburg College. read:

Last fall, Women in French introduced two Women in French is an organization new programs to help serve our members who organized exclusively for educational are toward the beginning of their career. In purposes under section 501(c)(3) of the addition to the mock interview program which Internal Revenue Code, or any began in 2013, we added a mentoring program corresponding section of any future tax for emerging scholars and travel grants for code. Women in French is a voluntary graduate students giving papers in WIF organization of individuals who wish to sessions at the national and regional MLA promote research on women writing in conferences. This is in addition to the already French, on women in literature and existing travel grants for graduate students culture of French expression, and other presenting at the biennial Women in French domains of feminist literary criticism. conference. An additional purpose of the

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organization is to share information and The meeting took place over lunch at the concerns about the status of women in Corner Restaurant in the JW Marriot on higher education in the United States and Friday, January 8, 1:30-3:00 p.m. Canada. Ten people were in attendance including In response to the question “Which aspects of several new and returning members. Officers WIF are most valuable to you?,” WIF Studies in attendance: Cecilia Beach (President), came out ahead, followed by belonging to an Theresa Kennedy (Secretary) and Juliette intellectual community, the email discussion Rogers (Editor WIF Studies). list, and WIF conferences. The most popular areas of research among the respondents were The meeting was run informally and no official the twentieth century, Francophone studies, the business was conducted since few WIF twenty-first century, and feminist/gender officers were in attendance. The main purpose theory. The novel was by far the most popular of this meeting was an overview of the genre, followed—but not closely—by organization’s various programs for the new autobiography, theater and film. One people in attendance. A more formal meeting surprising and troubling result for me was that will take place at the WIF conference in June. in the classroom, while 94% of respondents taught literature, primarily 20th- and 21st- 1) Cecilia thanked outgoing officers—Mary century, only 58% said they taught women’s Anne Garnett, Amy Reid and Catherine literature and only 27% feminist/gender Montfort—and welcomed the incoming theory. Let us hope that the well-attended officers---Patrice Proulx, Susan Ireland, sessions on creative and varied ways of Anabelle Dolidon and Adrienne Angelo. teaching French and Francophone women’s literature at the national and regional MLA 2) Brief discussion of the following: conferences, as well as the future addition of a teaching dossier in the fall edition of the WIF • WIF Studies Newsletter will help to increase the • Membership representation of women authors in our • Financial report that Molly Enz had classrooms. sent in advance of meeting • 2016 WIF Conference in Gettysburg I wish you all a productive and peaceful year, • Graduate student travel grants and I look forward to seeing many of you at • Mock interviews and mentoring the WIF Conference in Gettysburg in June. programs

Cecilia Beach • WIF Newsletter Alfred University • Graduate and Undergraduate Student Essay prize Congratulations to Joelle Hageboutros WIF Business (Swarthmore College) who won the Undergraduate Essay Prize this year for Women in French Business meeting at her essay “Shérazade: à la recherche 2016 MLA in Austin, Texas d’une identité post-coloniale.” • New “One Book” program Submitted by Cecilia Beach

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3) Reminder about George Sand Session on leaving for West Africa during her Saturday and joint WIF/GSA informal sabbatical. gathering after the session. Responsibilities of these offices: Call for WIF Nominations The Secretary’s main task is the Colette Trout ([email protected]) and maintenance of the membership database Annabelle Rea ([email protected]) are now (electronically and in hard copy), usually accepting nominations for the 2016 WIF including around 450 members. This means elections. communicating with members about their membership, sending out renewal reminders, The six offices open: Secretary, Treasurer, processing renewals through checks and three Regional Representatives: 1. Central PayPal, processing address changes, new and Rocky Mountain (Arizona, Arkansas, memberships, etc. People may join at any Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Montana, time during the year but there is a distinct Nebraska, New Mexico, North Dakota, peak in activity December through March as Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, Utah, we operate on the calendar year. The Wyoming), 2. Great Lakes (Illinois, Indiana, database needs to be kept up-to-date so that Michigan, Minnesota, Ohio, Wisconsin), and when there are elections, for instance, or 3. Middle Atlantic (Delaware, District of WIFS issues to be mailed, an accurate list Columbia, Maryland, New Jersey, can be provided. Pennsylvania, West Virginia), and a Graduate Student Representative. The Treasurer issues payments, submits deposits, maintains financial records, works Secretary and Treasurer positions are for two- with a CPA to file taxes, and prepares an year terms; Regional Representatives remain in end-of-year financial report to share with place for three years. You may nominate WIF board members. yourself* or another, after seeking the permission of that person. Send your Regional Representatives serve as liaisons statements outlining your qualifications and with the Regional MLAs, overseeing, in your goals for WIF, for publication in the Fall particular, the WIF sessions and social Newsletter, to both members of the events. They publicize WIF and its activities Nominating Committee, at the latest by July to colleagues in their respective regions to 15, 2016**. Please note that there is a 100- recruit new members. word limit for candidate statements (this is an overall limit, including both qualifications and The Graduate Student Representative goals). brings to the attention of the Executive Committee, via the President, concerns of * The Graduate Student Representative, graduate students relative to the mission of however, must be sponsored by a WIF WIF. S/he publicizes WIF and its activities member. S/he will normally serve a two- to student colleagues at graduate student year term but may not continue beyond the conferences and in electronic media to year of completion of the terminal degree. recruit new members. S/he also serves as a ** The Treasurer will be selected in a special member of the Graduate Essay Committee. election in March so that outgoing Treasurer, Molly Enz, may train her replacement before

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We ask all WIF members to think of good her/his essay, based on evaluators’ comments. candidates for these positions and encourage them to apply. The best essay will be published in the yearly WIF Studies, a refereed journal. The winner New section on Teaching Women in French will also receive $250, thanks to the generosity of WIF member Samia I. Spencer (Auburn The goal of Women in French is to promote University), who also sponsors a plaque to be the study of French and Francophone women given to the advising professor as WIF authors, the study of women's place in French Outstanding Mentor. We wish to recognize and Francophone cultures or literatures, and the work professors do in providing guidance feminist literary criticism. To this end, our on content, style, the writing process, use of newsletter will feature a new section focused secondary materials, and in encouraging the on innovative ideas for teaching the above- use of the appropriate conventions for mentioned areas at the undergraduate or grammar, usage, and documentation of graduate level. This feature will serve to share sources. cutting-edge pedagogical approaches, sample course descriptions, and other innovative Please encourage your strongest students to practices with our colleagues. Submissions send us their work. Thank you for your should be 8-10 pages in length, double-spaced assistance. in Times New Roman. Please contact Vice- Presidents Susan Ireland and Patrice Proulx if Have students send submissions to: you wish to propose something for spring Katherine Stephenson 2017. Women in French Studies Associate Editor, Graduate Student Essay Award 2016 Women in French Languages and Culture Studies Graduate Student Essay Award Contest UNC Charlotte 9201 University City Blvd. Please announce to your graduate students in Charlotte, NC 28223-0001 French that the postmark deadline for the 2016 Fax: (704) 687-1653 Women in French Graduate Student Essay [email protected] Award Contest is Wednesday, May 25, 2016. Essays in French or English dealing with ONLINE WIF BIBLIOGRAPHY women in French or Francophone Literature or PROJECT Civilization should be between 15 and 20 pages (double spaced), including notes and CALL FOR PAST BIBLIOGRAPHIES! works cited. Blind submissions should be sent We seek past Newsletter bibliographies to by email attachment in MSWord, formatted in publish as an archive on the WIF website. We the latest MLA style, and must include the hope that authors will send to Cheryl Morgan student’s university affiliation and graduate ([email protected]) a Word file of their standing (masters or Ph.D. candidate), home original or updated bibliography along with phone number, address, and email address, and their consent to publish online. If you do not the full contact information of the professor wish your bibliography to appear online, who supervised and recommends the paper. please let Cheryl Morgan know. We have a Students must also send one hard copy via number of bibliographies dating back some regular mail, postmarked within a week of the years, but hope to hear from as many past deadline. The winner may be asked to revise authors as possible. www.womeninfrench.org WIF 30.1 SPRING 2016 5

Conference Reports and News Women in French III: La mise à mort de la mère en mots Chair: Frédérique Chevillot, University of Women in French Panels Denver 2015 Rocky Mountain Modern Language 1. Yves-Antoine Clemmen, Stetson Association Conference University. "Nothomb : la mère en Santa Fe, New Mexico morceaux." 8 – 10 October, 2015 2. Cecilia Beach, Alfred University. "Motherless or Motherfree? Daughters in Submitted by Arline Cravens the Novels of André Léo."

Women in French I: Absences in French Women in French IV: La science-fiction and Francophone Literatures française dans la salle de classe: Roundtable Chair: E. Nicole Meyer, Georgia Regents Discussion to Create a Lesson Plan University Chair: Annabelle Dolidon, Portland State 1. E. Nicole Meyer, Georgia Regents University University. "Falling Between the 1. Anne Theobald, Hillsdale College. Autobiographical Cracks: Absences in "Stratégies narratives." Marguerite Duras's L'Amant." 2. Andrea King, Huron University College at 2. Eilene Hoft-March, Lawrence University. Western. "A Research-Learning Approach "Marie Darrieussecq's Lost Children." to Two Science Fiction Stories." 3. Cathy Jellenik, Hendrix College. "Writing 3. Annabelle Dolidon, Portland State Absence: Annie Ernaux and L'Autre fille." University. "Biotechnologies et dystopie." 4. Nancy M. Arenberg, University of Arkansas. "Absence and the Fractured Self Women in French V: Narrating in Régine Robin's L'Immense fatigue des Corporeality in Francophone Literature pierres." and Film Chair: Julia L. Frengs, Quest University Women in French II: Transgenerational Canada Memory in Contemporary Francophone 1. Siobhan J. McIlvanney, King's College Literature London. "'Impuissance' and 'Culpabilité': Chair: Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University The Weight of Maternal Influence in 1. Natalie R.K. Brenner, University of Contemporary French Women's Narratives Oregon. "'Trois cailloux je déposerai': of Anorexia." Remembering and Mapping in Géographie 2. Julia L. Frengs, Quest University Canada. des Origines." "'Ton corps est ton pays': Corporeality and 2. Mark D. Lee, Mount Allison University. Country in Ari'irau's Matamimi ou la vie "The Bomb: Transgenerational History in nous attend." the Works of Amélie Nothomb." 3. Amanda R. Rico, Texas A&M University. 3. Pascale Perraudin, Saint Louis University. "Politics and Pussy: Framing Female "Pré-textes, annexes et destinées, ou pour Bodies in Jean-Pierre Bekolo's Les une performance de la mémoire Saignantes." transgénérationnelle chez Maïssa Bey." 4. Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University. Women in French VI: Mothers and "Postmemory, Life Writing, and Creation Daughters: Writing the "(M)other" in the Works of Cécile Wajsbrot."

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Chair: Seda Chavdarian, University of 2. Courtney A. Sullivan, Washburn California at Berkeley University. "Women in WWII: Teaching in 1. Dawn M. Cornelio, University of Guelph . Translation and Across Disciplines." "Les contradictions d’une présence 3. E. Nicole Meyer, Georgia Regents absente: le rôle de la mère chez Delaume." University. "Pedagogical Strategies: 2. Catherine R. Montfort, Santa Clara Teaching Women in French to Grow a University. "Paula Dumont et la mort- Program." absence de sa mère." 4. Frédérique Chevillot, University of 3. Jamie Jia-Bao Huang, The University of Denver. "Inscrire le féminin dans la langue Western Ontario. "La souffrance partagée en dépit d’un sexisme grammatical entre une mère et sa fille dans Je ne suis typiquement français." pas sortie de ma nuit d’Annie Ernaux." 4. Juliette M. Rogers, Macalester College. Women in French IX: Femmes artistes et "From Separation to Homage: New Paths femmes écrivains for the Portraying the Québécois Mother." Chair: Cathy K. Leung, College of Staten Island (CUNY) Women in French VII: Good Girls/Bad 1. Cathy K. Leung, College of Staten Island Girls (CUNY). "La femme auteur dans Jacques Chair: Courtney A. Sullivan, Washburn de George Sand." University 2. Nadia Louar, Unversity of Wisconsin 1. Sylvie Ngilla, University of San Diego. Oshkosh. "Vernon Subutex: The Human "Construction du féminin dans Bande de Comedy by Virginie Despentes." filles de Céline Sciamma et Bintou de Koffi Kwahulé." Women in French X: Concierge, Serveuse, 2. Theresa Varney Kennedy, Baylor Vendeuse: The Representation of Working- University. "The Good, The Bad, and the Class Women in 21st Century French Film Thoughtful: The Emergence of the Chair: Elisabeth Christine Muelsch, Angelo Deliberative Heroine in Seventeenth- and State University Eighteenth- Century French Women’s 1. Elisabeth Christine Muelsch, Angelo State Theater." University. "The Working Class as Savior 3. Arline Cravens, Saint Louis University. of the Bourgeoisie?" "Rewriting the Feminine in Marie 2. Patricia G. Reynaud, Georgetown Krysinska’s Folle de son corps." University. "Splendeur et misères des 4. Joyce Johnston, Stephen F. Austin State travailleuses: Le point de vue University. "Sophie de Bawr: cinématographique." Melodramatic Good Girl?" 3. Florina Matu, St. Edwards University. "Quand la noblesse se cache dans la loge: Women in French VIII: Teaching Women représentations des femmes au travail dans in French Roundtable le cinéma français contemporain." Chair: Joyce Johnston, Stephen F. Austin State 4. Mariah Devereux Herbeck, Boise State University University. "Les stars de notre quotidien: 1. Seda Chavdarian, University of California The Female Concierges in Le at Berkeley. "Coming through the Side Pressentiment (2006) and L'Hérisson Door: Teaching WIF in Elementary (2009)." Language Classes." 5. Karen Cody, Angelo State University. "(Socio)Linguistic Analysis of a Most

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Uncommon Concierge in the Film Moderator: Nevine El Nossery Adaptation of Muriel Barbery's Novel - Marzia Caporale, “Preserving memories, L'Élégance du hérisson." celebrating lives: war, motherhood, and the self in Scholastique Mukasonga’s La Women in French Reception femme aux pieds nus.” Guest Speaker: Cecilia Beach, Alfred - Cara Landrigan, “Charlotte Delbo: University. "Women in French: Dharma, Coexisting Dichotomies in Aucun de nous Sangha and Karma." ne reviendra.” Graduate Student Travel Award Winner: - Erin Tremblay Ponnou-Delaffon, “Malheur Jamie Jia-Bao Huang, The University of de tous,” “crime de tous”: Marguerite Western Ontario. Faculty Advisor: Karin Duras and the Specter of War.” Schwerdtner, The University of Western Ontario. Panel 3: Experimental Writing and Bodies in Space WIF panels at MMLA Saturday 10:00 am to 11:15 am Columbus Ohio Franklin A Room November 12-14, 2015 Moderator: Sandra Simmons - Olivia Donaldson, “Disorienting Submitted by Nevine El Nossery Oppression: The Comic-Book Case of Marjane Satrapi’s Broderies.” Panel 1: The Self and the Other: Women’s - Joshua Armstrong, “The Ambiant Wartime Memoirs and Autobiographical Language of Lourdes: Text, Photo, Novels (1) Transparency, and Palimpsest in Sophie Friday 10:00 am to 11:15 am Calle’s Où et quand? : Lourdes.” Franklin A Room - Sandra Simmons, “Plasticity and Moderator: Nevine El Nossery experimental bodies of writing.” - Cyrielle Faivre, “‘Plus qu’à demi sauvage’: la Commune et la révolte des Canaques Panel 4: When the Written and the Visual dans les Mémoires de Louise Michel.” Meet in Women’s Narratives - Eilene Hoft-March, “Surviving an Saturday 1:00 pm to 2:15 pm Impossible History: Sarah Kofman and Franklin A Room Catherine Clément.” Moderator: Cyrielle Faivre - Amy E. Vidor, “The German Occupation - Adrianne Barbo, “From Post-Cards to Pop of France: A Gendered Experience in Irène Art: Cross-Cultural Representations of the Némirovsky’s Suite française.” Veil.” - Mary Anne Lewis, “Public Gender, Private - Noëlle Lindstrom, “Marie Bashkirtseff: Nation: Moufida Tlatli’s Les Silences du Two modes in harmony.” palais and the Constant Shift between the - Vlad Dima, “Cinepoetic Violence: the Individual and the Collective through Sight Dismemberment of Language in Leila and Sound.” Sebbar's Une femme à la fenêtre.”

Panel 2: The Self and the Other: Women’s Also, I want to recognize Amy E. Vidor, who Wartime Memoirs and Autobiographical received a WIF Travel Grant to support her Novels (2) participation in this panel. Amy works on Friday 2:30 pm to 3:45 pm Némirovsky at the University of Texas,Austin. Franklin A Room www.womeninfrench.org WIF 30.1 SPRING 2016 8

SAMLA 87 Conference "Living With(in) Madness in the works of November 13–15, 2015 Abla Farhoud," Olivia Choplin, Elon Sheraton Imperial Hotel & University ([email protected]) Convention Center Durham, North Carolina "The Rhythm of Lies chez Marie Ndiaye," Special Focus: "In Concert: Angela Ritter, The University of North Literature and the Other Arts" Carolina at Chapel Hill ([email protected]) Submitted by Amy Reid "The Boundaries of Individual and Session I: FRIDAY 8:30AM – 10:00AM Collective Consciousness in the Works of 01-18 DRAWING OUTSIDE THE LINES: Hélène Cixous," Anna Bernard-Hoverstad, FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS The University of North Carolina at Chapel AND THE VISUAL OR PERFORMING Hill ([email protected]) ARTS A (Women in French) Royal B Chair: Amy Reid, New College of Florida "What Have You Done for the Garden ([email protected]) Entrusted to You?: (In)visibility in Véronique Tadjo’s Written and Painted "Je danse, je danse: Colette, entre Narratives," Susan Frenchik, Washington littérature et arts vivants," Katerine and Jefferson College Gagnon, Chercheuse independante et ([email protected]) performeuse ([email protected]) Also, I want to recognize Emma Cooper, who received a WIF Travel Grant to support her "Painting For Her Life: The Independence participation in this panel. Emma works with of the Female Artist in George Sand's Elle Margot Irvine at U Guelph. et Lui and Anne Brontë's The Tenant of Wildfell Hall, Emma Cooper, University of Guelph ([email protected]) WIF Member Publications &

"The Strange Creolization of Jim Crow: News Blackface Minstrelsy in Louisiana Francophone Women's Literature," Mary Eileen M. Angelini has been selected for a Greenwood, The University of North Fulbright Specialist project in Canada at the Carolina at Chapel Hill University of Manitoba from January 3-16, ([email protected]) 2016, according to the United States Department of State and the J. William Session 2: FRIDAY 10:15AM – 11:45AM Fulbright Foreign Angelini will work with DRAWING OUTSIDE THE LINES: faculty and graduate students in the FRANCOPHONE WOMEN WRITERS Department of French, Spanish and Italian in AND THE VISUAL OR PERFORMING the Faculty of Arts, and education students and ARTS B (Women in French) Royal B faculty in the Faculty of Education from the Chair: Amy Reid, New College of Florida University of Manitoba and the Université de ([email protected]) St. Boniface, on the project “Francophone Culture: Literature, Pedagogy and Additional Language Acquisition.” She will also give

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public lectures and participate in community source d’inspiration pour les auteures de cet outreach at l’École St. Avilia, a French- ouvrage collectif. Ce recueil rassemble des immersion school. essais critiques s’intéressant au désir, au corps, à l’écriture comme décentrement et espoir. On Angelini is one of more than 400 U.S. faculty y trouvera aussi «Scène revisitée», une and professionals who will travel abroad this nouvelle inédite, un entretien accordé à la year through the Fulbright Specialist Program. poète Claudine Bertrand et une analyse de la The Fulbright Specialist Program, created in correspondance entre l’auteure et les 2000 to complement the traditional Fulbright propriétaires de la maison Trestler (du roman Scholar Program, provides short-term La maison Trestler ou Le 8e jour d’Amérique). academic opportunities (two to six weeks) to Contribution théorique en forme de femmage à prominent U.S. faculty and professionals to une écrivaine québécoise majeure. support curricular and faculty development and institutional planning at post-secondary, Natalie Edwards published “Obliged to academic institutions around the world. Sympathise: Infanticide in Il y a longtemps que je t’aime and A perdre la raison” Australian The Fulbright Program, America’s flagship Journal of French Studies, 52.2 2015, 174-187 international educational exchange activity, is and “Deliberately Barren? Voluntary sponsored by the U.S. Department of State, Childlessness in Contemporary French Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs. Women’s Writing” Australian Journal of Over its 60 years of existence, thousands of French Studies, 52.1 2015, 24-36. U.S. faculty and professionals have taught, studied or conducted research abroad, and She co-edited Framing French Culture: thousands of their counterparts from other Photography and the Visual Arts with countries have engaged in similar activities in Benjamin McCann and Peter Poiana, the United States. More than 285,000 University of Adelaide Press, 2015. This emerging leaders in their professional fields volume contains articles of interest to WIF have received Fulbright awards, including members, such as “Annie Ernaux’s individuals who later became heads of Phototextual Archives” (Natalie Edwards), government, Nobel Prize winners, and leaders “Accumulating Algeria: Recurrent Images in in education, business, journalism, the arts and Pied-Noir Visual Works” (WIF member Amy other fields. Hubbell) and “The Image of Self-Effacement: The Revendication of the Anonymous Author Dufault, Roseanna, dir. Madeleine Ouellette- in Marie NDiaye’s Autoportrait en vert” Michalska : La nuit des mots et la nuit de la (Christopher Hogarth). The volume is chair, Montréal: Remue-Ménage, 2015. np. available for free download at 138. ISBN (ISBN : 978-2-89091-543-5) https://www.adelaide.edu.au/press/titles/framin Connue pour son sens critique, son érudition, g-french/ l’élégance de son style et sa défense du féminin dans la pensée et l’écriture, la Natalie also published a book, Voicing romancière, essayiste et poète Madeleine Voluntary Childlessness: Narratives of Non- Ouellette-Michalska construit depuis près de Mothering in French, which appeared in Peter cinquante ans une œuvre lucide et singulière. Lang’s Contemporary Women’s Writing Sa présence constante sur les scènes littéraires Series. Part One discusses feminist, québécoise et internationale révèle un souffle sociological and psychoanalytic theories of et un engagement intellectuel exceptionnels, voluntary childlessness. Part Two analyses

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first-person accounts of voluntary Leslie Kealhofer-Kemp published Muslim childlessness by Linda Lê, Jane Sautière, Lucie Women in French Cinema: Voices of Joubert and Madeleine Chapsal. Here is the Maghrebi Migrants in France (Liverpool UP) publisher’s synopsis: in December 2015. It is the first comprehensive study of cinematic The decision to reject motherhood is the representations of Muslim women from the subject of several key works of literature in Maghreb (Algeria, Morocco, Tunisia) who French since the new millennium. This migrated to France during the decades book looks at first-person accounts of preceding and following the end of French voluntary childlessness by women writing colonial rule. Situated at the intersection of in French. The book explores how women post-colonial studies, gender studies, and film narrate their decision not to mother, the studies, this book brings together a diverse issues that they face in doing so and the corpus of over 60 documentaries, short films, narrative techniques that they employ to téléfilms, and feature films released in France justify their stories. It asks how these between 1979 and 2014. In examining the authors challenge stereotypes of the diverse ways in which the voices, experiences, childless woman by claiming their own and points of view of Maghrebi migrant identity in narrative, publicly proclaiming women in France are represented and their right to choose and writing a communicated through a selection of key femininity that is not connected to films, this study offers new perspectives on motherhood. Using feminist, sociological this population. It shows that women of this and psychoanalytic theories to interrogate generation, as represented in these films, are non-mothering, this work is the first book- often more empowered and their experiences length study of narratives that counter this far more diverse than has generally been long-standing taboo. It brings together thought. The films examined here contributed authors who stake out a new terrain, to larger contemporary debates and discussions creating a textual space in which to take relating to immigration, integration, and ownership of their childlessness and call identity in France. for new understandings of female identity http://liverpooluniversitypress.co.uk/products/ beyond maternity. 60586

Reviewer and WIF member Karin Marie-Christine Koop was guest editor for a Schwerdtner kindly wrote that “Voicing special issue entitled La question de Voluntary Childlessness is a compelling, l’immigration aujourd’hui en France for beautifully written and timely study of what it Contemporary French Civilization 40.2 (2015) means to reject motherhood. Through careful which contains essays on the problems faced analysis of the form and content of recent by immigrants in France, including French-language literary works, Edwards discrimination and academic achievement, and shows how long-standing expectations of their representation in recent films. Two women, as well as the assumptions underlying contributions focus on immigrant women in them, are being challenged. This book makes the work force and within the LGBTI an important contribution to research in population while another addresses the contemporary literature, women’s writing, condition of women with regards to islamism. epistolary writing, French studies and cultural Marie-Christine Koop authored “Introduction” studies.” (pp. 117-26) and “Cité nationale de l’histoire de l’immigration: entretien avec Marie

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Poinsot, directrice du département Éditions” images have an impact on the initial reception (pp. 277-95). Other WIF members who of the book, but beyond that, book covers contributed to this issue are Samia Spencer determine how both the informed and (“Deux révoltées qui tiennent à se faire uninformed reader categorize and interpret entendre: Chahdortt Djavann et Djemila francophone Algerian women’s writing in Benhabib,” pp. 255-76) and Michèle Bissière France and beyond. As the covers help to sell (“L’immigration dans le cinéma français: the works, they also produce messages, quelques tendances depuis la fin des années represented via their iconographies that embed 2000,” pp. 215-34). Marie-Christine Koop also themselves into the texts. A sometimes published “La France peut-elle améliorer son explicit, and at the very least, implicit dialogue système éducatif?” in The French Review 88.2 between the visual paratextual representation (December 2014): 15-32 and “Né quelque part and the written textual one is created: a ou la quête identitaire d’un franco-algérien” in dialogue that extends beyond the life of the Französisch Heute 45.3 (2014): 129-34. In physical book to a sort of canonical paradigm September 2014, she was awarded the medal for reading these authors’ works. Thus, even if of the Ordre des Francophones d’Amérique by the cover image appears ephemeral, it never the Quebec government during a ceremony truly disappears. Its powerful control over held at the National Assembly. critical reception and, ultimately, interpretation of francophone Algerian women’s writing Roberta L. Krueger has published “Antoine remains. de la Sale’s Petit Jehan de Saintré and the Comte de Tressan: Libertinage, gallantry and Toczyski, Suzanne. "'Blessed the Breasts at French identity in an eighteenth-century Which You Nursed': Mother-Child Intimacy adaptation” in Cahiers de recherches in St. Francis de Sales' Treatise on the Love of médiévales et humanistes 30.2 (2015) (Journal God." Spiritus: A Journal of Christian of Medieval and Humanistic Studies). Spirituality. 15. 2 (2015): 191-213.

Pamela A. Pears has published Front Cover Metka Zupancic has recently published the Iconography and Algerian Women’s Writing: following articles: "New Feminine Myths As Heuristic Implications of the Recto-Verso Builders Of New Transcultural Horizons." Effect. Lanham, MD: Lexington Books, 2015. Transcultural Negotiations of Gender: Studies The front covers of books written by Algerian in (Be)longing. Eds. Saugata Bhaduri, and women serve as the primary source of Indrani Mukherjee. New York-New Delhi: investigation in Front Cover Iconography and Springer, 2015. 14-24 aand "Kristeva's The Algerian Women Writers. These covers have Samurai: ‘Camouflage of Sacredness in a implications that extend beyond selling the Desacralized World’." Myths in Crisis: The book. What we see on one side of the page – or Crisis of Myth. Eds. José Manuel Losada in this case, the cover, (recto) controls what we Goya, and Antonella Lipscomb. Cambridge, read on the reverse – in this case, the text itself England, UK: Cambridge Scholars Press, (verso). Using theories of the paratext, 2015. 303-312. including those of Gérard Genette and Jonathan Gray, this book determines how four dominant iconographies used on the covers of Algerian women’s writing – Orientalist art, the veil, the desert, and the author portrait – work with and against the texts they represent. These

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WIF SCIENCE FICTION say that the Renaissance marks the birth of science fiction with the publication of Thomas BIBLIOGRAPHY More’s canonical British text Utopia (1516), as Annabelle Dolidon (Portland State well as Cyrano de Bergerac’s Histoire comique University), Kristi Karathanassis and des États et Empires de la Lune (circa 1650). Andrea King (Huron University College) Many scholars posit that science fiction began in the nineteenth century in 1818 with Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein. However, to which INTRODUCTION subgenre of science fiction this text belongs is up for debate. Horror? A Prometheus-type In a recent interview for the French newspaper tale? Libération, Roland Lehoucq, president of Les Utopiales (a yearly international SF festival in As to French science fiction, although there are Nantes) stated that “La SF ne cherche pas à many texts published before the Second World prédire le futur, c’est la question qui importe” War by writers such as Jules Verne, Camille (interview with Frédéric Roussel, 19 octobre Flammarion, J.-H. Rosny aîné, Gustave Le 2015). Indeed, with plots revolving around Rouge, and Maurice Renard, examples of space travel, aliens or cyborgs, science fiction French science fiction multiply and flourish in (or SF) explores and interrogates issues of the 1970s, notably due to the creation of borders and colonization, the Other, and the special collections by publishers such as human body. By imagining what will become Denoël (Présence du futur; Lunes d’encre) and of us in hundreds or thousands of years, Gallimard (Folio SF). The historical science fiction also debunks present trends in predominance of male science fiction authors globalization, ethical applications of points to a gender imbalance within the genre, technology, and social justice. For this reason, an imbalance that has not yet entirely corrected science fiction narratives offer a large array of itself. Women do publish, but very few in teaching material, although one must be aware comparison to men. Nonetheless, as of its linguistic challenges for learners of demonstrated by the list of works of French (see below for more on this subject). contemporary SF fiction below, women are producing many SF publications of high In this introduction, we give a very brief quality today. history of the genre, focusing on the main subgenres of science fiction and women’s What Is Science Fiction? contribution to them. We also offer several SF is first and foremost a literature that asks suggestions regarding how to teach SF in the questions – many of which are philosophical: classroom – there are additional suggestions who are we ontologically, metaphysically, and for each fictional text referenced in the physically? What will we become or how will annotated bibliography. Readers interested in we evolve? We have searched for what we exploring SF further can consult the annotated were fifty thousand years ago; we must ask bibliography, which provides detailed what we will be fifty thousand years from now. suggestions for further reading. Other potential questions are: How do we relate to others? What is a community and who A Brief History of French SF counts as human (a question often asked in the It is difficult to trace the exact contours and past through alien encounters but more often origins of science fiction as a genre. If utopia explored today through eschatological is a subgenre of science fiction, then we can narratives and dystopias)? www.womeninfrench.org WIF 30.1 SPRING 2016 13

Raphaël Colson and François-André Ruaud Orwell’s 1984, the propagandist official explain that contemporary authors experiment discourse of a dystopic regime often resembles with different subgenres and narrative that of utopia. Like a utopia, a dystopic society conventions within science fiction—mysteries, is highly organized but it displays an excess of humorous tales and political thrillers are surveillance and control of every aspect of published alongside space operas and political daily life. In SF literature, dystopias often dystopias (Science-fiction: une littérature du unfold in urban settings in which a hero resists réel, 58). In a work of science fiction, the the oppressive regime. For an example of a reader is not confronted with new dystopian take, read “Dedans, dehors” by technologies, customs and territories, but with Sylvie Denis in her short story collection new ways to look at the world. Science fiction Jardins virtuels. addresses “les transformations techno- sociétales qui sculptent le futur de nos sociétés Eschatological tales/Récits de fin du monde – développées” (Science-fiction: les frontières de A popular genre in French SF, eschatological la modernité, Ed. Mnémos, 2008 [8]). It maps narratives point to the fears and the collective psyche of our times by exploring transformations of the society in which they our dreams, our beliefs, fears and nightmares are imagined. After the end of the Cold War, (14). In short, science fiction dares us as epidemics and ecological catastrophes became readers to exit our comfort zone and, through a predominant in end-of-the-world narratives. process of defamiliarization, reexamine the Aside from the failure of human society to deal world we create and with which we engage with problems before they happen, the most every day. important aspect of these narratives is the aftermath of an event so big that everything Below are a few terms that are useful to the must be reevaluated. Again, community study of science fiction, as well as suggestions (re)building, conflict resolution, life after of corresponding works of fiction from the technology, and the spread of biological bibliography that exemplify them. dangers are classic elements here. For an original take on this subgenre, read the short Utopia/Utopie – The word utopia derives from story “Les Bulles” by Julia Verlanger. the eponymous book by Thomas More (1615). Although we use the term casually today, in Space opera – The space opera became very literary studies it points to imagined popular in the 1960s and 1970s. Based on the communities in which a certain order is expression ‘soap opera’, space operas are sagas maintained for the good of all. This order that take place in the universe at large with (always isolated from the rest of the world) grand battles and Ulyssean heroes. They usually expresses itself through political and involve politics and war games, and weave labor structures. It is a symptom of discontent everyday life with conflicts of epic with regard to contemporary politics, and, in proportions. For these reasons, they were often the classroom, encourages imagination. Read published as series. Space operas are still Élisabeth Vonarburg’s novel Chroniques du popular today among SF authors. For an Pays des Mères as an example of utopia. example of this subgenre, dive into Laurence Suhner’s QuanTika trilogy. Dystopia/Dystopie – Dystopia is not the opposite of utopia. While a utopia claims to be Uchronia/Uchronie – Utopia is the place that for the good of all, a dystopic society clearly doesn’t exist; uchronia is the time that doesn’t benefits only a few. However, as is the case in exist and features events that did not transpire.

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Uchronia refers to fiction that has as its Mélanie Fazi, Québécoise writer Élodie Boivin premise the modification of a major historical and Swiss writer Laurence Suhner, are event. The most popular inspirations for following in their footsteps. Elisabeth uchronia are WWII and the rise to power of Vonarburg and Joëlle Wintrebert, who both Adolf Hitler. The next most popular is live in Québec, have been publishing Napoleon’s demise. There aren’t many successfully since the 1980s. Last but not least, uchronias in women’s writing but for a good Marie Darrieussecq, who has never been example of this subgenre, read Par tous les associated with SF, has nonetheless written temps by Colette Fayard (not included in this many novels and short stories that flirt with the bibliography), which reimagines the life of genre: White and Le Pays explore hologram Arthur Rimbaud (Denoël, 1990). technology, and Zoo examines cloning.

Women Writers of French Science Fiction Teaching Male authors dominated science fiction long Science fiction is difficult to read for the before the term science fiction was even French learner. Texts surprise and unsettle the coined. Few women were published in this reader through the process of genre before WWII and only a few made it to defamiliarization, introducing vocabulary that the printer until the 1970s and 1980s. is not in the dictionary and landscapes that do According to her husband Claude Cheinisse, not fit into the student’s current frame of Christine Renard, although she was deemed reference. For these reasons, pre-reading “l’une des quatre de nos meilleurs écrivains activities are paramount; the instructor should français de science-fiction” in 1975, had a hard provide lists of vocabulary and perhaps a short time getting published (à la croisée des summary of the story to give students a leg up. parallèles, Denoël, Présence du futur, 1981, However, the difficulty of these texts is p18). In cases where women were only precisely what makes them useful for language published in SF magazines such as Fiction (in learning, especially when it comes to which Cheinisse’s work frequently appeared), reinforcing reading strategies. Because of the their stories have all but disappeared today. defamiliarization process that operates when One may unearth old copies of these students read science fiction, students must magazines after some research or, if lucky, rely on language only. They cannot rely on find some of the stories in a used copy of a what they already know about French culture, collection. Novels may also be bought used. for example, when a story takes place in space. Interlibrary loan services in the U.S. will fail to Thus, students have to learn how to detect turn up many titles available in the US and paraphrases that explain a piece of futuristic fans of French SF have to purchase books from technology, or neologisms that make sense France. because of the familiar verbs they are associated with. They have to recreate the Increasingly, SF women writers have taken up universe of the story alongside the text – for the pen and have created a place for this, visual exercises will help (sketching, themselves within publishers’ lists and on collages), especially in groups. To assess readers’ bookshelves. Following the footsteps learning, we suggest asking students to write of Christine Renard and Julia Verlanger, who their own science fiction short story in which died in 1979 and 1985 respectively, Colette they create a universe with a consistent list of Fayard, Sylvie Denis, Catherine Dufour and invented vocabulary and, of course, excellent Sylvie Lainé have become major SF figures in grammar! French today. Younger authors such as

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In terms of class discussion, science fiction is with “Quelle synthèse pour la fiction extremely rich. With utopias and dystopias, prospective ?” The neophyte will learn about you can discuss political regimes, surveillance science fiction a few pages at a time, from the technology, labor organization, and class impact of WWI and WWII on SF, the divisions. With uchronias, you can discuss influence of the “livre de poche,” cyberpunk history. Fantasy – another subgenre of science esthetics, and the role of publishers. The fiction – might seem remotely connected to evolution from the term “science fiction” to everyday life at first, but it often stages the “fiction spéculative” is intentional. As noted in battle between good and evil, the role of the introduction to this bibliography, the nature, and relationship with the Other. Space authors view the genre as “un outil operas are fertile ground for a conversation on indispensable et adéquat pour étudier et imperialism and colonization. Regardless of anticiper les mécanismes qui conditionnent the subgenre of SF that the instructor chooses notre monde en devenir” (179). This doesn’t to explore with students, SF has the potential mean that science fiction is forecasting the to inspire complex discussions on urgent and future like the weatherman, but instead, that engaging topics. science fiction understands the world as constantly evolving. Hypothesizing trajectories for our world and its societies based on current GENERAL WORKS ON SCIENCE FICTION events is a way to make sense of the present as well as, at times, a means to expose excesses Bréan, Simon. La Science-Fiction en and weaknesses while embracing technological France: théorie et histoire d’une littérature. change. Paris: PU Paris-Sorbonne, 2012. Print. This book is an essential contribution to the Guiot, Denis, Jean Pierre Andrevon, and field of French science fiction studies. Bréan George Barlow. La Science-fiction. Paris: first gives a rich historical background on MA Editions, coll. Le Monde De…, 1987. French science fiction since the 1950s. He This pocket encyclopedia provides concise acknowledges American influence but does not explanations and definitions for subgenres, dwell on it, focusing instead on the various authors, terms, tropes, and really anything that texts that constitute what he calls the “macro- relates to French science fiction from the end texte français” or the literary consciousness of the nineteenth century to the 1980s. In the that these texts form (105). The most first few pages, Guiot stresses the impossibility interesting chapters (V, VI and VII) are those and futility of searching for a set definition of that explore major themes and narrative SF, and discusses the problem of limiting and techniques. In chapter V, for example, he coins restricting literature by assigning labels and several terms such as “le régime ontologique “genres” at all (8). Much of the Avant-propos matérialiste spéculatif” (261) and redefines the consists of quotes and working definitions concept of objet (287-297) and vademecum provided by several notable theorists, critics, (280) within the science fiction genre. and other personalities in science fiction and paints a general picture of what it is, what it Colson, Raphaël and André-François can do, and why it is important and valuable Colson. Science-fiction. Une littérature du literature (what we can learn from it). réel. Paris: Klincksieck, 2006. This brief volume is organized around 50 Jakubowski, Maxim. Introduction. questions, starting with “Quelles sont les Travelling towards Epsilon: An Anthology of origines de la science-fiction ?” and ending

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French Science Fiction. Ed. Jakubowski. women in the genre and the influence of the London: New English Library, 1976. 9-27. feminist movement on its dominant themes is The author writes that “[t]his anthology aims largely ignored. Overall, this volume presents to present the multitude of themes, styles and a concise and straightforward summary of all preoccupations of [late 20th century] French the information pertaining to the history of [SF] at a time when a whole new generation of French SF. writers which has a fierce understanding of the genre’s conventions and restrictions is Vas-Deyres, Natacha. Ces Français qui ont emerging” (10). The introduction provides a écrit demain: utopie, anticipation et science- brief history of the evolution of French SF by fiction au XXe siècle. Paris: Éditions discussing its development in relation to Champion, 2012. certain social and political events such as the Often, critics, theorists, and historians are more Second World War and the May 1968 protests. concerned with the impact of American SF Jakubowski identifies a number of influential (which tends to be more political and military) texts, highlights key authors, and points to the on French SF than with French SF itself. This work of Cyrano de Bergerac as the genesis of text focuses on the ways in which French SF is the genre in France. Though “French science different, original, and unique in its fiction has always been more concerned with construction of alternative, strange, or psychology” (24), the author identifies several futuristic universes, and its examination of elements and tropes that French SF has in political and social issues. In Avant-propos I, common with science fiction from America Roger Bozzetto describes this source as the and the UK. first to really examine French SF’s roots in, and shared features of, “la littérature utopique” Lofficier, Jean-Marc, and Randy Lofficier. – a genre and an umbrella term under which French Science Fiction, Fantasy, Horror and most French SF was assembled prior to Hugo Pulp Fiction: A Guide to Cinema, Television, Gernsback’s introduction of the term “science Radio, Animation, Comic Books and fiction” in 1926. In the Introduction, Vas- Literature from the Middle Ages to the Deyres identifies four types of utopias that are Present. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2000. echoed in French SF throughout the 18th-20th Book 2 in this text deals with the French centuries, focusing on the anti-utopias of fantastique and science fiction literature from contemporary times. Chapters II and III of the the Middle Ages to contemporary times. The third section look closely at the feminist and Preamble distinguishes between the two mechanized (turned digitalized) utopias of the genres, and then the sections that follow treat 70s, 80s and 90s. their histories and developments separately. This text is essentially an elaborate and Vint, Sherryl. Science Fiction: A Guide for extremely comprehensive timeline which takes the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2014. into account how France’s changing social, The first chapter of this guide stresses the cultural, and political climates from the 1500s difficulty of defining SF in terms that are more to the 2000s affected the writing, publishing, specific than the “sense of wonder” it provokes and attitudes towards/reception of the in its readers and consumers. Through the speculative, anticipation, and utopian stories analysis of specific examples from literature which officially became “science fiction” in and film, the subsequent chapters outline the the late-19th and early-20th centuries. Chapter dominant and competing theories and IX: Modern Science Fiction (After 1950s) is interpretations of the genre (such as Darko particularly informative, but the topic of Suvin’s “cognitive estrangement” theory in his

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Metamorphoses of Science Fiction), as well as some contemporary authors have been writing its many different trends and sub-genres (Hard since the 1970s. sf, Megatext, Cyberpunk, Speculative Fiction, Feminist SF, etc.) in order to illustrate why this For each writer, we focus on one or two texts is the case. Though it focuses on the Anglo- (novel or short story) because we think it best American SF tradition, it is very helpful as a not to overwhelm the reader with a long list of brief but comprehensive introduction to the publications from which she might find it general and universal themes, ideas, and difficult to choose. Should a given author common tropes of the genre, as well as its prove interesting, it is easy to find a complete history, development, and constantly evolving list of her published works on the Internet. We social, political, and cultural significance. give priority to short story collections over novels, with some exceptions, to encourage the Wollheim, David A. Introduction. The Best exploration of science fiction without the from the Rest of the World: European daunting task of starting with a thousand-page Science Fiction. Ed. Wollheim. Garden City, space opera. NY: Doubleday &, 1976. Xi-xix. Wollheim provides an overview of the history For more on the authors referenced below, and and conditions of European SF literature as on science fiction and its subgenres, visit compared to Anglo-Saxon SF and identifies nooSFere at noosfere.org and ReSFururae French SF as “by far the healthiest and most (carnets de recherche sur la science-fiction) at vigorous science fiction literature” (xiii) when http://resf.hypotheses.org. compared to the SF market and products of other European and French-speaking countries. Boivin, Elodie. “Impress Genetic Inc.” He acknowledges the impact of French SF on Available online only from Éditions ActuSF the shaping of American SF prior to WWI, and at editions-actusf.fr, janvier 2015. discusses how translation of French SF texts Élodie Boivin is an up-and-coming Québécoise into English and other languages played a key author and colorist of bandes dessinées who role in how the genre changed and developed resides in France. She has not published much differently within and between different parts prose yet, but you can download for free of the world at the beginning of the 20th “Impress Genetic Inc,” an ingenious and century. Finally, he touches on the “return” delightfully sarcastic short story, on the site of and growing presence of European SF to/in the ActuSF Éditions (editions-actusf.fr). The story North-American market, which began in the won the Prix Barjavel at the Festival des 1970s and continued through the final decades Intergalactiques de Lyon in 2013. of the 20th century. In the future, a woman invents a 3D printer SF FICTION WRITTEN BY WOMEN that can print body parts, using nanotechnology to reconnect the tissues. This bibliography privileges short stories and Bodies can no longer die; diseases and novels from the last twenty years, but it also accidents are a thing of the past. On the other offers references to earlier publications. We hand, children have become so desensitized to could not publish a bibliography on science pain that they have fun playing with a dog’s fiction women writers without including legs as if they were swords. Ironically, the only authors such as Julia Verlanger and Christine sensitive character in the narrative is a robot. Renard who have now passed away. Moreover, This short text raises many questions. What makes us human? Is it our humanoid body or

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our ability to empathize with others? This is a second chance at life – would we choose to be great story to introduce science fiction into the the same person or someone different from our French classroom. original self?

Darrieussecq, Marie. Zoo. Paris: P.O.L., Denis, Sylvie. Jardins virtuels. Paris: 2006. Gallimard, Folio SF, 2003. Marie Darrieussecq writes novels and short Born in 1953, Sylvie Denis is a central figure stories that constantly flirt with science fiction, of French science fiction today. Writer, editor, the fantastic and magical realism. In her translator and anthologist of science fiction, bestseller Truisme (1996), translated in English she has published short stories and novels for as Pig Tales, she debunks the excesses of a adults and young adults, translated American sick society—the story is set in the near and British SF texts by Greg Egan, Alastair future—through the transformation of a Reynolds and Stephen Baxter; and she has won woman into a sow. In White (2003) and Le several prizes for her work. In 2006, she Pays (2005), technological innovations signal published a revised and augmented version of that the stories also take place in the near her short story collection Jardins virtuels. In future. In White, holographic these stories, the reader journeys to a future telecommunications allow scientists on a dominated by new but uncannily recognizable mission in Antarctica to project themselves subjectivities, often defined through resistance into their family’s living room while in Le to a dystopic, homogenizing order, and Pays, the main character ‘visits’ her dead dominated by technoscience: rebellious grandmother (in fact, her hologram). intelligent robots, polymorphous and hyper- connected bodies, brainwashed adolescent In her collection of short stories Zoo, girls, and “les Hommes Libres et Singuliers,” Darrieussecq published SF narratives an omnipresent underground and rhyzomatic alongside fantastic tales. The plots of “Quand group that helps individuals escape the je suis fatiguée le soir” and “Mon mari le lobotomized life of their contemporaries. clone” revolve around cloning, which makes “L’Anniversaire de Caroline” is a first-person these stories great fuel for a discussion on narrative that combines technological reproduction and women’s health care. While innovation (imprisoning convicted felons in the first story is dystopic (the narrator evokes sarcophagi and hooking them to computer excessive surveillance and the oppression of systems), social justice (the rebel heroine some of its citizens by a scientific elite), the cheats the oppressive system) and women second, whose narrator praises the current issues (the heroine adopts a daughter from her social order, hypothesizes a rationalized virtual prison). healthcare system that privileges cloning over classic reproductive techniques (cloned babies If you are ready for a page-turner space opera, have priority in receiving day care). Both read also La Saison des singes and its sequel stories display Darrieussecq’s usual wit. L’Empire du sommeil (L’Atalante, 2007, 2012). Holograms and cloning are not decorative devices that simply festoon these stories. Dufour, Catherine. L’Accroissement Rather, they allow for a different perspective mathématique du plaisir. Paris: Bélial, 2008. on the characters’ trajectory. Cloning also Catherine Dufour, born in 1966, has won poses the question of what it is to be human, national prizes for her novels (several of them and who we would become were we given a for Le Goût de L’immortalité [2005]), but her

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short stories are as dense, complex and dark as Libérateur” tells the story of an Earth agent her longer prose. “L’Accroissement” is her who tries to understand an alien society and first collection. It regroups texts written over undergoes a riveting transformation. several years and previously published in periodic genre publications. These twenty Fazi, Mélanie. Serpentine. Paris: Gallimard, stories are closer to fantasy than science Folio SF, 2010. fiction, although the eponymous story Melanie Fazi is a professional translator by “L’Accroissement mathématique du plaisir” trade and one of the rising voices in fantastic straddles both genres, challenging the reader literature. She published many short stories with philosophical questions and intertextual and her first novel Trois pépins du fruit des references. Dufour’s writing style is uniquely morts (2003) received excellent reviews. To sophisticated whether she writes about discover Fazi’s fascinating stories, pick up the vampires, artists or monsters. collection Serpentine which contains ten “L’immaculée conception,” in which the main narratives about magical tattoos, haunted female character finds herself pregnant, is houses, and lost souls on the highway. Each chilling. Despite many attempts, the young story is carefully crafted to take you into woman cannot terminate her pregnancy. The realities that parallel everyday life: an accident story not only depicts the constant battle on the highway, a singer in the subway car, between a woman and the child to be born; it vacations in the family home. Storytelling is a acerbically interrogates the social construct of recurrent subtheme in the collection. pregnancy, from pressures in the workplace to Characters tell stories, ask for, or steal stories condescending advice from the medical world from others, as in “Serpentine” and “Ghost and from friends. Witty dialogue and Dufour’s Town Blues” – a spooky take on the Western. comic writing style offset the main character’s Which stories do we choose to tell? Why do horrifying experiences and the lack of support we need stories? How much of one’s story is that she receives from her entourage. part of the self and what happens to the self once the story is told? You – and your students Fayard, Colette. Les Chasseurs au bord de la – will think about these stories long after you nuit. Paris: Denoël, coll. Présence du futur, close the book. 1989. It is not easy to find Colette Fayard’s texts but Lainé, Sylvie. Espaces insécables. Paris: this collection (her first) is available on ActuSF, coll. Les Trois Souhaits, 2008. Editions Denoël’s website in the SF collection. Sylvie Lainé was born in 1957. She has been Fayard’s stories unfold with strange encounters publishing SF short stories since the 1980s – for the characters as well as for the reader. At while teaching information technologies at the the end of some of these stories, one may feel a college level. She won several prestigious slight shiver. In “L’Alphabet des révélations,” prizes in France (Prix Rosny Aîné, Grand Prix people never leave their homes and rely de l’imaginaire). “Espaces insécables” is one entirely on computer networks. Even when of four collections published with ActuSF in having a party with friends, holograms – not the series “Les Trois souhaits.” The collection real people – gather. A young woman defects contains six stories in which futuristic and joins a pirate group in order to counter this technology subtly spreads and brings forth a tasteless virtual life and soon, little by little, new social order (“Carte blanche”) or gives “les maisons se sont mises à s’ouvrir.” More rise to encounters with other forms of easily identifiable as an SF narrative because intelligence (“Le chemin de la rencontre”). In the action takes place on another planet, “Le “Carte blanche,” 150 000 people on a giant

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spaceship live by the motto “Le changement, oppression with regards to racial and gendered c’est la vie!” and change jobs and partners others. regularly based on little cards that pop out of a personal printer. Even the urban landscape gets Christine Renard (avec Claude-François reconfigured once in a while – a great story to Cheinisse). À la croisée des parallèles. Paris: spark discussion on the concepts of dystopia Denoël, 1981. and utopia. Christine Renard (1929-1979) started publishing short stories in the magazine See also the collections Marouflages (Paris: Fiction in the early 1960s while studying ActuSF, coll. Les Trois Souhaits, 2009) and psychology. In 1965, she married another SF L’Opéra de Shaya (Paris: ActuSF, coll. Les writer, Claude-François Cheinisse, and Trois Souhaits, 2014). continued writing short stories, novels and Pelletier, Francine. Les Jours de l'ombre. translations, as well as scholarly articles on Québec: Alire, 2004. science fiction. She died of cancer at age 50 Francine Pelletier was born in Laval, Québec but her husband continued to publish her texts in 1959. She writes science fiction and mystery after her death. Ten of her novels and about stories for both adults and young adults, and sixty short stories made their way into print has published over 50 works in total. She has either during her lifetime or posthumously. In been nominated for, and won, a number of the collection À la croisée des parallèles, prizes for her long and short fiction. Pelletier is Cheinisse creates an intertextual dialogue well known for her brave and admirable between his own short stories and Renard’s. female protagonists, like those found in her One such pair is “Juliette” by Cheinisse and popular trilogy Le sable et l’acier. In 1999, she “Mark” by Renard, two different approaches to won the Grand Prix de la Science-Fiction et du the same love story between a man and his Fantastique Québécois for the second and third artificially-intelligent car. While Cheinisse volumes, Samiva de Frée (1998) and Issabel develops the point of view of the car owner, de Qohosaten (1998). (For those interested, Renard writes a first-person narrative with the Nelle de Vilvèq (1997) is the first in the series.) voice of the jealous car replaced by a younger That same year, she won the Prix Boréal for model. Also in this collection, “La Nuit des Samiva de Frée, and took home the Prix Albiens” won the Prix Rosny aîmé in 1982 for Aurora Award for the “meilleur livre” in 2000. best short story. The albiens are albino mutants She is currently finishing her second SF that don’t sleep, don’t dream, and thus, cannot trilogy, Le cycle des Laganière, begun in 2007. discharge their aggressiveness in their sleep, which makes them very dangerous. In this Les Jours de l’ombre (2004) is Pelletier’s only story, Renard’s doctoral studies in psychology SF novel that does not belong to a series. It is surface through the Freudian theory that about a young woman, Sha’Ema, who unleashed neurosis leads to rape and murder. discovers a third eye developing beneath her The beginning of the story also debunks the left breast. To avoid mutilation of her mutation mechanisms by which we start to see others as at the hands of the village priests, and to a threat just because they are different. protect her family from persecution for impurity, she self-exiles in order to discover Rochon, Esther. Coquillage. Montréal: La the truth about her biological heritage. Pleine Lune, 1985. Pelletier’s SF works for adults consistently Esther Rochon is considered one of the top explore the themes of alienation and three women authors in the field of Québécois science fiction, along with Francine Pelletier

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and Elisabeth Vonarburg. She was born in 1948 in Quebec City, and has been writing and QuanTika is a sumptuous space opera –the winning awards for her stories since the age of genre is still popular – that takes the reader to sixteen. She was awarded the Grand Prix de la the harsh planet Gemma where humans have Science-Fiction et du Fantastique Québécois settled a colony. The real adventures start for the first time in 1986 for L’Épuisement du when a group of archeologists uncover dark soleil (1985), the second novel in her first powers locked for thousands of years under the trilogy Le Cycle de Vrénalik, which also won planet’s surface. The main character, Ambre, is her the Prix Boréal for the best science fiction a female scientist whose past also resurfaces as novel that same year. In 1987, she won both she experiences desire, scientific curiosity and prizes again for her novel Coquillage (1986). of course, fear. In QuanTika, Suhner combines She has won the Grand Prix a total of four the best of classic science fiction with times for four of her novels, and four short contemporary explorations of self-identity, stories. Many of her stories belong to the SF otherness, and ecological quandaries. Part genre, but incorporate elements of fantasy and technoscientific endeavor, part mystical the fantastique. journey, the trilogy (1584 pages combined) epitomizes science fiction postmodernism in Coquillage is a non-chronological SF narrative the sense that it constantly challenges the truth, that interweaves two separate but connected embraces the unknown and the uncanny as part love stories: one between a man named Thrassl of the construction of the self, and “thinks” in and a giant, telepathic, shellfish monster, terms of shifting paradigms instead of absolute which takes place in the past, and the other truth. While the story is entertaining, the reader between the monster and Thrassl’s son, will find many ways to relate to aspects of François, which unfolds in the present. The Ambre’s journey into space and into herself. novel follows the amorous relationships that the various primary and secondary characters For a (considerably) shorter look at Suhner’s have with the monster, and with each other. It prose, read her steampunk short story “La is a sensual and grotesque tale of love, sex, and Chose du lac” (available in pdf from ActuSF death, which delves into the depths of the editions for 99 eurocents). In 1925 by the human condition. Among other things, it Lehman Lake in Switzerland, a diamond thief questions and subverts traditional sex and meets a monster in the deep… gender roles, and explores topics such as motherhood, reproduction, and consciousness. Verlanger, Julia. “Les Bulles.” In D’Étranges visiteurs: histoires de science- Suhner, Laurence. QuanTika (Trilogy: fiction. Paris: Médium, 1991. Tome 1: Vestiges,; Tome 2: L’ouvreur des Julia Verlanger (1929-1985) was born Éliane chemins; Tome 3: Origines). Paris: Taïb and often published under the name L’Atalante, 2012, 2013, 2015. Gilles Thomas. She published most of her Laurence Suhner is a Swiss science fiction novels in the 1970s. Between 2008 and 2010, writer and graphic artist. Tome 1 of QuanTika the French SF publishing house Bragelonne was her first novel. The second part of the released several tomes finally regrouping her trilogy won the prix Bob Morane and the prix novels, such as the post-apocalyptic trilogy Futuriales in 2013. Although she published her starting with L’Autoroute sauvage (originally first (short) work of prose in 2006 she has been published in 1976). However, these volumes publishing graphic novels since the early are not readily available in the United States 1980s.

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and, like many others for the moment, must be her doctoral degree in 1987 but opted out of a purchased from France. career in academia. She is without a doubt one of the greatest women writers of science On the other hand, the short story “Les bulles” fiction in French today, alongside Anglophone is quite easy to find because it was published counterparts such as Ursula K. Le Guin and in several anthologies (find it also in a used Margaret Atwood. Besides writing fiction copy of Le Grandiose avenir, an anthology of (novels and short stories), she has also written French SF of the 50s, published in 1975). songs, hosted radio shows, organized Verlanger’s first publication, it dates back to conferences and translated fantasy and science 1956 but we make an exception to the fiction novels. She has won countless prizes, temporal boundaries of this bibliography to and yet new editions of her texts were for a include Verlanger (a major figure in French long time not published in France. Fortunately, science fiction who begs to be the subject of a many are now available again in print and monograph). In this short story, a 16 year-old electronically through the Québécois publisher girl is locked in her house after her father’s Alire. She is also one of the rare SF writers death and narrates her lonely life with robots. whose novels have been translated into Every day, giant bubbles kill or transform English. people outside, and humanity must remain indoors at all times. One day, the radio It is very difficult to select only one book from announces that things will finally change and Vonarburg’s extensive bibliography. Le that people will soon be able to safely emerge. Silence de la cité (translated into English as But the ending, which we won’t reveal here, The Silent City), her first novel, is a post- will question the ethics of who gets to live and apocalyptic dystopian tale in which people live who gets to “stay” before life can return to underground in a city run by robots. The few normal. survivors have managed to more than double their life expectancy thanks to genetic This story would work well with French manipulations. The heroine is a young girl, learners at the intermediate level because the Élisa, raised by Paul, an evil genius who wants narrative voice – a teenage girl – cleverly to create a new human. As a young adult, she avoids complex sentences while retaining the escapes from the city and later works toward estrangement inherent to most science fiction repopulating the damaged surface of the earth stories. The origin of the bubbles is never in the Village. These few details about the plot explained and thus would lead to interesting do not do justice to the complexity of discussions about otherness, diseases and Vonarburg’s narrative and the questions it environmental issues, as well as decisions raises about gender roles, sexuality, and regarding the protection of the individual genetic manipulations. As in her later novel versus the community. Chroniques du Pays des Mères (1992), women take charge of their destiny, the role of man is Vonarburg, Elisabeth. Le Silence de la cité. downplayed, and motherhood is redefined – it Québéc : Alire; science-fiction edition, 1998 is no longer the linchpin of the normative (1981). family structure, but instead the passing on of Elisabeth Vonarburg is a prolific French writer responsibilities and respect for others. Via the who started writing science fiction in the presence of robots, simulacra and manipulated 1960s. She moved to Quebec in 1973 and ever bodies, this novel also questions what it is to since has been on the editorial team of the be human and the role of images in human science fiction magazine Solaris. She earned relationships.

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separation, he questions the complex absence- Vonarburg also published many short stories. presence of gender difference in his society. See the collections La Maison au bord de la mer (Alire, 2000) and Sang de Pierre (Alire, “Alien bise” is typically science fictional: a 2009). crew on a spaceship finds a planet with an abandoned alien craft shell. What follows is a Wintrebert, Joëlle. La Créode et autres récits body invasion but, contrary to the Alien movie futurs. Paris: Bélial, 2009. series or a traditional body snatcher plot, these Joëlle Wintrebert’s stories are poetic and aliens bring pleasure to their hosts. Can they political. All of her narratives involve a social bear it? critique of well-established rituals and official rules that impose on the community strict but Other anthologies that bring together short questionable ways of living through stories by men and women: reproduction, sexuality, body image, or gender roles. Her genealogical approach to tradition Klein, Gérard, Ed. Les Passeurs de often debunks contemporary rules of law, Millénaires: La grande anthologie de la publicly characterized as ‘natural’ by a leading science-fiction française. Paris: Le Livre de elite and yet so obviously manmade. She likes poche, 2005. to explore, as she states in the postface of “La Créode,” the violence behind worlds of peace Denis, Sylvie, Ed. Escales sur l’horizon 2001. and the cost of such a peace (think Paris : Fleuve Noir, 2000. colonization). Dunyach, Jean-Claude, Ed. Escale 2000. Paris: Born in France in 1949, Winterbert won the Fleuve Noir, 1999. Prix Rosny aîné three times: first for the title story of the collection La Créode (1980), which is featured in this bibliography, and then CRITICAL TEXTS for two of her novels (Les Olympiades truquées in 1988 and Pollen in 2003). She also Csicsery-Ronay, Istvan, Jr. The Seven won the Grand Prix de la Science-Fiction Beauties of Science Fiction. Middletown, française for Le Créateur chimérique in 1989 Connecticut: Wesleyan UP, 2008. (a continuation of the short story “La “Science-fictionality” is a theory that aims to Créode”). The collection regroups 19 short both describe and account for the ubiquity of stories that give a wide look at the overall science-fictional themes and elements in work of this prolific writer and the above- contemporary cultural products of all genres mentioned themes. and mediums (novels, films, comics, video games, visual art, music, digital media, etc.). It “La Créode” is a good example of Wintrebert’s is the ethos of science fiction, and denotes an ability to create an unfamiliar world in which attitude or a mode of thought. The “cognitive the hero is at odds with a tradition that has attractions” or “mental schemes” of science- involved genetic manipulation. In this story, fictionality are the “seven beauties” of the title: the Ouqdars reproduce through “scissiparité,” fictive neology, fictive novums, future history, giving birth to a twin self, instead of another imaginary science, the science-fictional being. But the main character, Ranys, is an sublime, the science-fictional grotesque, and anomaly. He is carrying a female and refuses the Technologiade. These easily recognizable, the separation. By defying the ritual of but not easily articulated, features, theories,

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themes, and story structures apply equally to science and technology in terms of the social esteemed and popular forms of science fiction, binaries that have historically structured one’s making this text useful for unifying one’s identity and his or her place in society. understanding of SF and sci-fi. Each beauty Haraway sees hope in the way that twentieth- receives its own chapter, and is discussed in century technology has blurred the boundaries relation to example works. between humans and animals, organisms and machines, and the physical and non-physical. Evans, Arthur B. “Functions of Science in As a product or symbol of these transgressions, French Fiction.” Studies in the Literary her cyborg further disrupts the divisions Imagination 22.1 (1989): 79-100. between mind/body, idealism/materialism, This essay investigates the amalgamation of nature/culture, whole/part, truth/illusion, scientific and literary discourse in French maker/made, self/other, man/woman, narrative texts of the 19th to the 20th centuries. God/man, etc. Her myth proposes that “cyborg Evans classifies these “hybrid” texts based on imagery can suggest a way out of the maze of the pedagogical, satiric, or narratological dualisms in which we have explained our purposes of their scientific or pseudo-scientific bodies and our tools to ourselves” (39), and elements. He concludes that the ways in which lead us to a post-gender utopia in which these two separate domains interact and production, reproduction and imagination are overlap in a single work can provide insight separate from identity. into the construction and development of narrative forms. For example, in the 20th Hottois, Gilbert and Jean-Noël Missa, and century, scientific discourse in literature is Laurence Perbal (eds). L’Humain et ses increasingly used to “enhance verisimilitude, préfixes: une encyclopédie du to create exotic effects, to expand the thematic trans/posthumanisme. Paris: Editions Vrin, possibilities of the plot, or to provide a 2015. fictional platform for social commentary” (94). This encyclopedia presents the facts about and This source provides an interesting technical ethical questions raised by today’s and formal look at the development of the technoscientific innovations – devices often science fiction genre. used in science fiction. It is an ambitious project, and despite some organizational and Haraway, Donna Jeanne. “A Manifesto for stylistic issues, it is a successful one. It reads Cyborgs: Science, Technology, and Socialist like a book of wonders, each chapter telling a Feminism in the 1980s.” 1985. The Haraway story of human innovation and the power of Reader. New York: Routledge, 2004. 7-45. imagination. It combines technical 1980s socialist feminism saw techno-culture as descriptions, philosophical probes, and artistic something that deepened and reinforced female explorations to offer a large, but not diluted, oppression in the private and public spheres. picture of how technoscientific applications Haraway’s critique of this perspective adopts reconfigure, challenge, and enhance the human the notion of cyborg identities (such as body. The concept of the human constantly “constructions of women of color and changes as each innovation “pose la question monstrous selves in feminist science fiction” éthique de la transgression des limites (32)) to argue against the substitution of the naturelles”(67). Thus, the reader will not find a individual “woman” with the collective fixed definition of the human or an exhaustive “women” and their “experience” (and this definition of transhumanism; rather, the book essentialist attitude more generally), and to offers several definitions from different angles argue for the positive reconstructive power of of interpretation.

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Renaissance. As the title indicates, “Lecture et What will become of the human body is not poétique d’un genre littéraire” brings the only the business of scientists, philosophers reader closer to the materiality of SF prose and and artists. L’Humain et ses préfixes makes focuses on the textual specificities of the clear that transhumanism is omnipresent. genre: neologisms, analepsis, narrative point- Although we cannot know what the human of-view. For this reason, it is an excellent body will look like, what it will do, or what it secondary resource for instructors teaching will think thousands of years from now, the science fiction. Langlet breaks stereotypes and process of transformation has already begun resists reducing science fiction to recurrent and touches us all. narrative objects (aliens, space ships, etc.). For example, she analyzes science as social Jameson, Fredric. Archaeologies of the practice (“le traitement romanesque des images Future: The Desire Called Utopia and Other de la science” [168]), and feminism as impetus Science Fictions. New York: Verso, 2005. for alternative societies (208). With this book, In the Introduction: Utopia Now, Jameson science fiction finally receives the same makes an important distinction between utopia attention to details as “la littérature patentée” as genre and utopia as “impulse,” wish, theme, (quatrième de couverture). and/or ideology expressed in many types of fiction, and which extends beyond literature to Lavigne, Carlen. Cyberpunk Women, the socio-political visions and programs of the Feminism and Science Fiction: A Critical real world, and of post-Cold War life in Study. Jefferson, North Carolina: particular. He seeks to define and deconstruct McFarland & Co, 2013. contemporary representations of Utopianism in The author argues that “[cyberpunk is] a direct and apart from SF texts, and to determine its reflection of the human condition in the digital future as a political genre and political age” (17). Feminist cyberpunk fiction of the ideology, by treating utopian form as separate 1990s was the result of women authors altering from utopian content. Chapters 1-6 of Part 1: and subverting key tropes and themes of the The Desire Called Utopia, deal exclusively and masculinist texts of the 80s (primarily identity, extensively with the former, and Chapter 7: globalization, the male hacker/tech genius, and The Barrier of Time, is the point at which the anything relating to Frances Bonner’s “four discussion turns to the latter. Part 2: As Far as Cs” of cyberpunk: Corporations, Crime, Thought Can Reach, consists of twelve critical Computers, and Corporeality) in order to essays that address ideas from Part 1 in present dated notions from new progressive relation to specific examples of past and perspectives, and to introduce new themes present utopian works of fiction. relating to the experience of anyone who is not a white, heterosexual, middle-class man. Langlet, Irène. La science-fiction: Lecture et Chapters 4 and 5 address how the topic of poétique d’un genre littéraire. Paris: postmodern identity is framed, considered, and Armand Colin, 2006. responded to differently in cyberpunk texts of Langlet’s close study of science fiction texts the first and second waves by exploring the by English- and French-language authors is concept of gendered bodies and the escape unique in its close-reading analysis approach. from embodiment (or the mind/body Other books offer an overarching study of the dichotomy) in relation to virtual realities, genre, quickly moving from trope to trope; cyborg characters, and artificial intelligence. others tell at length the history of science Chapter 8 looks at how the role of woman and fiction since the nineteenth century or the the concept of “motherhood” changes and /or

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is complicated when reproductive technologies “new” and unique. SF is foremost a “literature usurp biological procreation. of cognitive estrangement” (la connaissance distanciée) meaning that it is based in a Sargent, Pamela. Introduction. Women of natural, empirical, knowable world, but this Wonder: The Contemporary Years: Science world is made different from the author and Fiction by Women from the 1970s to the reader’s reality by the presence of a “novum.” 1990s. Ed. Sargent. San Diego: Harcourt This estranging factor (be it a new and Brace, 1995. 1-20. unknown object/invention, phenomenon, This book underscores the centrality of women setting, character, or relationship (64)) is either writers to the development of the science “true” or “fake” based on its transformative fiction genre. The author identifies one of the influence on the world in the text, and its principal aims of all SF as the “freeing of the “ethico-political liberating qualities” (82). reader…from the social and sexual Overall, Suvin “[challenges] the defining of all assumptions of [societies and] culture” (1), and SF as extrapolation” (76), escapism, and explains that this trend is a product of the anticipation, arguing that good science fiction women’s movement and its ubiquitous effect is not about positing, predicting, or escaping to on SF in the 70s. Due to considerable backlash a new/better/different world – it is analogical, in the 80s, many women authors and their and about gaining new perspective on the sympathizers began avoiding the “feminist” author and reader’s current reality and label. The 90s can therefore be referred to as a environment. The French and English versions “post-feminist” era for the genre, in which the of Suvin’s text are nearly identical, but the feminist ideals of women authors manifested English text contains added chapters that covertly and primarily in utopian visions of the elaborate on and clarify his arguments and future that posited societies with non- theories (Chapter IV: SF and the Novum). traditional sex and gender roles. Finally, Sargent makes the point that not all fiction written by women is automatically “feminist” fiction.

Suvin, Darko. Pour une poétique de la science-fiction: Études en théorie et en histoire d'un genre littéraire. Montréal: PU Québec, 1977.

Suvin, Darko. Metamorphoses of Science Fiction: On the Poetics and History of a Literary Genre. New Haven: Yale UP, 1979. Asserting that it is a genre worth engaging with critically, Suvin proposes a definition of science fiction and then outlines how best to approach and evaluate it. He first discusses SF in relation to a variety of “fictions métaphysiques” in order to show how it connects to the genres from which it developed (the fantastique, the merveilleux), and how it distinguished/s itself from them as something

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Bibliographies Published in the WIF Newsletter: 1993-2015

Les écrivaines québécoises de la relève: Bibliographie partielle (Lucie Lequin) Vol. 7 : 1 Spring 1993

Franco-Ontarian Women Writers (Barbara Godard) Vol. 7 : 2 Fall 1993

Franco-Caribbean Women Writers (Susanne Rinne) Vol. 8 : 1 Spring 1994

Les Françaises: Civilisation contemporaine (Supplement) (Colette Hall –Trout--) Vol. 8 : 2 Fall 1994

Franco-Carribbean Woman Writers (Supplement) (Susanne Rinne) Vol. 9 : 1 Spring 1995

Women’s Autobiography Bibliography (Nicole Meyer) Vol. 9 : 1 Spring 1995 Senegalese Women Writers (Annabelle Rea, Judy Schaneman, Deirdre Bucher Heistad, Vol. 9 : 2 Fall 1995 Frances Novac and Thérèse O’Connell) Romancières québécoises des années soixante (Anne Brown) Vol. 10 : 1 Spring 1996

Les femmes écrivains de Suisse Romande (Françoise Fornerod) Vol. 10 : 2 Fall 1996

Auteures francophones de Belgique (Renée Linkhorn) Vol. 11 : 1 Spring 1997

Tunisian Women Writing in French (Cynthia Hahn) Vol. 11 : 2 Fall 1997

Southeast Asian Women Writers (Jack Yaeger) Vol. 12 : 1 Spring 1998

Femmes-poètes (Michael Bishop) Vol. 12 : 2 Fall 1998

Southeast Asian Women Writers (Supplement) (Jack Yeager) Vol. 12 : 2 Fall 1998

Femmes écrivaines camerounaises (Cheryl Toman) Vol. 13 : 1 Spring 1999 Auteures françaises issues des immigrations maghrébines Vol. 13 : 2 Fall 1999 (Frédérique Chevillot and Susan Ireland)

Vol. 14 : 1 Spring 2000 Ecrivaines haïtiennes Joëlle Vitiello) , ( Vol. 14 : 2 Fall 2000 Écrivaines algériennes (Yolande Helm)

Vol. 15 : 1 Spring 2001 Écrivaines lesbiennes (Janine Ricouart)

Écrivaines calédoniennes (Yzabelle Martineau) Vol. 15 : 2 Fall 2001 Auteures acadiennes (Monika Boehringer) Vol. 16 : 1 Spring 2002

L’amitié (Nicole Simek and Zahi Zalloua) Vol. 16 : 1 Spring 2002

Les poètes femmes de l’Afrique centrale (Karen Bouwer) Vol. 16 : 2 Fall 2002

Les femmes et la création de l’humour (partie I) (Cheryl A. Morgan) Vol. 17 : 1 Spring 2003

L’imaginaire musical au féminin (1950 à nos jours) (Frédéric Arroyas) Vol. 17 : 2 Fall 2003

Mère et fille (Christine Makward) Vol. 18 : 1 Spring 2004

Écrivaines francophones issues des pays balkaniques (Vassiliki Lalagianni) Vol. 18 : 1 Spring 2004

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Romancières aujourd’hui : 1990-2004 (Martine Guyot-Bender) Vol. 18 : 2 Fall 2004

Écrivaines pour la jeunesse (Bénédicte Monicat and Daniela Di Cecco) Vol. 19 : 1 Spring 2005

Ananda Nirsimloo-Anenden [Ananda Devi] (Rohini Bannerjee) Vol. 19 : 1 Spring 2005

Écrivaines médiévales (Sarah Gordon) Vol. 19 : 2 Fall 2005

Écrivaines de l’ouest canadien (Marie-Noëlle Rinne) Vol. 19 : 2 Fall 2005

Female Recipients of Major French Literary Prizes (1903-2004) (Margot Irvine) Vol. 20 : 1 Spring 2006

La Nouvelle (Jean Anderson) Vol. 20 : 1 Spring 2006 Les Femmes dans la société française (ouvrages parus depuis 1995) Vol. 20 : 2 Fall 2006 (M-C Weidmann Koop) Ecrivaines insulaires de Maurice (Christine Duvergé) Vol. 21 : 1 Spring 2007 Eighteenth-Century Women Novelists at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century : A Vol. 21 : 1 Spring 2007 Selected Bibliography (Marijn S. Kaplan) Animation and Anime by Francophone Women Artists (Janis Pallister) Vol. 21 : 2 Fall 2007

Sur la féminisation (Fabienne Bauder) Vol. 22 : 1 Spring 2008 Ecritures et études de l’endurance : L’extreme contemporain Vol. 22 : 2 Fall 2008 (Simona Pruteanu et Karin Schwertdner) Masculinités dans la littérature canadienne du XIXe et du XXe siècle Vol. 23 : 1 Spring 2009 (Edith Biegler Vanderovoot) Les Femmes écrivent la Corse (Mia Panisse) Vol. 23 : 2 Fall 2009

Eighteenth-Century Women Novelists at the Dawn of the Twenty-First Century II Vol. 24 : 1 Spring 2010 (Marijn S. Kaplan)

Les auteures haïtiennes (Joëlle Vitiello) Vol. 24 : 2 Fall 2010

Bibliographie choisie du théâtre québécois au féminin depuis les années 1960 Vol. 25 : 1 Spring 2011 (Louise H. Forsyth) Françoise d’Issembourg d’Happoncourt, Madame de Graffigny (1695-1758) Vol. 25 : 2 Fall 2011 (Dr. S. Pascale Dewey) Interviews (d'auteur contemporaines) : bibliographie choisie Vol. 26 : 2 Fall 2012 (Leah Roth and Karen Schwerdtner) Women and the Periodical Press in the French-Speaking World (1830-1930) Vol. 27 : 1 Spring 2013 (Kathryn Adair Corbin and Catherine Nesci) Conditions sociales et intégrations des femmes immigrées en France Vol. 27 : 2 Fall 2013 (Mary-Christine Widemann-Koop)

Jovette Marchissault (Sylvie Pascale Dewey) Vol. 28 : 1 Spring 2014

Virginie Ancelot (Joyce Johnston) Vol. 28 : 2 Fall 2014

Écrivaines francophones issues des pays balkaniques (Vassiliki Lalagianni) Vol. 29 : 1 Spring 2015

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Interview: Élise Rida Musomandera ENTRETIEN AVEC ÉLISE RIDA Vol. 29 : 2 Fall 2015 MUSOMANDERA (George MacLeod)

WIF Roster

Email address (WIF list): [email protected] Site Internet de WIF : http://www.womeninfrench.org

President: Cecilia Beach, Alfred University, Modern Languages Department, Perlman Hall, 1 Saxon Drive, Alfred, NY 14802. Tel: (607) 871.2883. Email: [email protected]

Past President: Mary Anne Garnett, Professor Emerita, University of Arkansas, Little Rock. Tel. (501) 772-0300. Email: [email protected];

Co-Vice-President: Susan Ireland, Grinnell College, 330D Alumni Recitation Hall, Grinnell, IA 50112. Tel: (641) 269-4295. Email: [email protected]

Co-Vice-President: Patrice Proulx, University of Nebraska Omaha, 6001 Dodge Street, ASH 301C, Omaha, NE 68182-0192. Tel: (402) 554.4839. Email: [email protected]

Secretary: Theresa Varney Kennedy, Baylor University, Modern Languages and Cultures, One Bear Place #97392, Waco, TX 76798. Tel: (254) 710-4425. Email: [email protected]

Treasurer: Molly Enz, South Dakota State University, Modern Languages and Global Studies, Box 2275, Brookings, SD 57007. Tel: (605) 688-6590. Email: [email protected]

WIF Studies

Executive Editor: Juliette Rogers, Macalester College, Department of French and Francophone Studies, 1600 Grand Ave., Neill Hall 410a, St. Paul, MN 55105. Tel: (651) 696-6492. Email: [email protected]

Production Editor: Marijn Kaplan, University of North Texas, Department of World Languages, Literatures, and Cultures, 1155 Union Circle #311127, Denton, TX 76203-5017. Tel: (940) 369-7223. Email: [email protected]

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Book Review Editors: Caroline Strobbe, The Citadel, Department of Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, 171 Moultrie St., Capers 234D, Charleston, SC 29409. Tel: (843) 953-5020. Email: [email protected]. And Joëlle Vitiello, Macalester College, Department of French and Francophone Studies, 1600 Grand Ave., Neill Hall 408, St. Paul, MN 55105. Tel: (651) 696-6412. Email: [email protected]

Advertising Manager: Bendi Benson Schrambach, Whitworth University, World Languages & Cultures Department, 300 W. Hawthorne Road, Westminster Hall 226, Spokane, WA 99251. Tel: (509) 777.4372. Email: [email protected]

Mailings: Ellen Thorington and Dorothy Stegman, Ball State University, Department of Modern Languages and Classics, North Quad (NQ) 178, 2000 W. University Ave., Muncie, IN 47306. Tel: (765) 285-1365 / (765) 285-1373. Email: [email protected] / [email protected]

Library Circulation: Maureen Perry, University of Southern Maine, Lewiston- Auburn College, 51 Westminster St, Lewiston, ME 04240. Tel: (207) 753-6546. Email: [email protected]

Back issues: Mary Rice-DeFosse, Bates College, French and Francophone Studies, 9 Andrews Road, Roger Williams Hall, Room 411, Lewiston, ME 04240. Tel: (207) 786-6279. Email: [email protected]

Newsletter Editor: Cheryl A. Morgan, Hamilton College, French Department, 198 College Hill Road, Clinton, NY 13323. Tel: (315) 859-4775. Email: [email protected]

Website Manager: Michèle Schaal, Iowa State University, World Languages and Cultures Department, 505 Morrill Dr., 3102J Pearson Hall, Ames, IA 50011-2205. Tel: (515) 294-4856. Email: [email protected]

WIF Electronic List Manager: Gay Rawson, Concordia College, World Languages and Cultures, 901 8th St. S., Academy 224, Moorhead, MN 56562. Tel: (218) 299.3412. Email: [email protected]

Nominating Committee Co-Chairs: Annabelle Rea and Colette Trout. Annabelle (Emerita): Occidental College, 1600 Campus Rd, Los Angeles, CA 90041. Home Tel: (818) 244-0487. Email: [email protected]; Colette (Emerita): Ursinus College, 601 E. Main Street, Collegeville, PA 19426. Derrick Real Estate Tel: (610) 489-4111. Email: [email protected]

Representatives (regional and graduate): www.womeninfrench.org WIF 30.1 SPRING 2016 31

• New England and Eastern Canada: Anna Rocca, Salem State University, World Languages and Cultures, 352 Lafayette St., SB-118, Salem, MA 01970. Tel: (978) 542.7106. Email: [email protected] • New York State: Eileen Angelini, Canisius College, Modern Languages, Literatures and Cultures, 2001 Main Street, Churchill Tower 1011, Buffalo, NY 14208-1517. Tel: (716) 888-2829. Email: [email protected] • Mid-Atlantic: Florence Ramond Jurney, Gettysburg College, Department of French and Italian, 300 N. Washington St., West Building Room 212 C, Campus Box 2961, Gettysburg, PA 17325-1400. Tel: (717) 337-6870. Email: [email protected] • Great Lakes: Névine El Nossery, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Department of French and Italian, 1220 Linden Dr, 660 Van Hise Hall, Madison, WI 53706. Tel: (608) 262-7920. Email: [email protected] • South: Adrienne Angelo, Auburn University, Department of Foreign Languages and Literatures, 6058 Haley Center, Auburn University, AL 36849. Tel: (334) 844- 6372. Email: [email protected] • Central and Rocky Mountain: Arline Cravens, Saint Louis University, Department of Languages, Literatures and Cultures, One North Grand, Morrissey Hall 1519, St. Louis, MO 63103. Tel: (314) 977-2451. Email: [email protected], [email protected] • Western U.S. and Western Canada: Annabelle Dolidon, Portland State University, World Languages and Literatures, Neuberger Hall 451Y, 724 SW Harrison St., Portland OR 97201. Tel: (503) 725-9571. Email: [email protected] • Graduate Student: Mélissa-Jane Gauthier, Université du Québec à Chicoutimi en cotutelle avec l’Université Lille 3, 555 boul. de l'Université, Chicoutimi (Québec) G7H 2B1. Email: [email protected]

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